Saturday, February 7, 2015

The Prodigal Son and the Loving Father: Which One Needed to Change?

Now just two weeks from the beginning
of Great Lent, today’s gospel passage reminds us of Who God is and who we
are. He is our loving Father and we are
His beloved children. Unfortunately, we
have not acted accordingly. We have taken
Him for granted, rejected Him, and wasted His blessings and our lives for the
sake of getting what we want. So like the prodigal son in today’s parable, we
all need to come to our senses, recognize the truth about how we have strayed, and
return home. No matter what we have
done, no matter how broken we have made our relationship with God, He patiently
awaits our return, runs to greet us, and welcomes us back into His family with
joy and celebration.

The
prodigal son in today’s gospel certainly did not think that his father would
react that way to him. He had deeply
insulted and rejected his father by asking for his inheritance, which was like
telling the old man that he should drop dead so the son could have his money. The young man traveled far away, quickly spent
all his money with partying and immorality, ended up as a servant taking care
of pigs, and was so hungry that he wished he could eat the pigs’ slop.

Then
he came to himself, realized how terrible his life was, and decided to return
home in hopes of becoming merely a servant to his father, for he realized that
he was not worthy to be called his son anymore.
No self-respecting father in that time and place would have done more
for such a disrespectful son. Even to
receive him back as a servant was probably a stretch.

But
in a way that must have shocked everyone, the father ran to greet his son, hugged
and kissed him, gave him fine clothes, slaughtered a calf, and threw a big
party. Instead of condemning or trying
to get even with his son, the father rejoiced that his lost son had returned
home, that one who had been dead to him was restored to life.

The
story of the prodigal son should inform all the repentance that we do
throughout our lives. It shows us that there
are no limits to our Lord’s mercy, no restrains on His compassion or
forgiveness in response to truly repentant sinners. Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ was
born, was baptized, taught, worked miracles, was crucified and resurrected, and
ascended into heaven for our salvation.
He came as the Second Adam to restore us as the children of the Father,
to put us in our proper place in the family of heaven as those created in the
divine image and likeness.

Despite
some bad theology that remains all too popular, the Father is not a harsh, stern,
hateful judge who is out to get us. Neither is He somehow a projection of our
experiences of our own fathers, no matter what they are like. Likewise,
the Son did not come to condemn and punish, but to save. We should have no fears about Him rejecting
our genuine repentance, no matter what we have done. He accepted and blessed everyone who came to
Him in humility during his earthly ministry, including tax-collectors, a woman
caught in adultery, Gentiles, the demon-possessed, and His own apostles who
denied and abandoned Him. Even as He
died on the cross, our Savior prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified
Him. His abundant mercy and compassion
extend to all who call upon Him from the depths of our hearts.

If
we have any spiritual vision at all, we will see ourselves in the parable of
the prodigal son, for like him we have foolishly rejected our true identity and
dignity as the beloved children of the Father.
We have chosen our own pride, our own self-centered desires, and our
addiction to pleasure over a healthy relationship with the One Who has given us
life itself. And we have born the
consequences of our foolish decisions and actions by making ourselves and
others miserable in ways that often cannot be easily remedied.

St.
Paul wrote sternly to the Corinthians because they had done the same thing as
that lost young man. The men there were
having immoral relationships with prostitutes and apparently believed that what
they did with their bodies was not of importance to God, as though Christ came
only to save their souls.

St.
Paul set them right by reminding them that their bodies are temples of the Holy
Spirit, members of Christ, and destined for the life of the heaven. The intimate union of man and woman is for
growth in holiness and love through the blessed covenant called marriage, which
is an image of the relationship between Christ and the Church in which husband
and wife wear the crowns of the Kingdom.
When people join their bodies in other ways, they choose their passions
over holiness and the glory of their identity as God’s children. Though it is unpopular to say in our culture
and a real challenge to live out, we must proclaim what the Church has always
taught: Sexual union in any other
context falls short of God’s purposes for man and woman, who were created
together in His image and likeness, and places major obstacles in their journey
to the life of the Kingdom. These are
grave sins that call for repentance.

The
prodigal son was like those Corinthian men.
He had treated his father shamefully in order to lead a shameful life of
pleasure; and when the money for women and wine had run out, he ended up in a
pig sty so wild with hunger that he envied the food of the swine. And since the Jews considered pigs to be
unclean, the Lord makes clear that this fellow had truly hit rock bottom.

No
matter what particular kind of wandering from the path to the Kingdom we have
done, no matter what our particular set of temptations may be, each and every
one of us is in the place of the prodigal son in one way or another. That is because we have chosen our own will
over our Father’s. We have asked for our
inheritance—namely, all of God’s blessings that we take for granted--and then
used them however we pleased. In thought,
word, and deed, we have often done our best to live as though God were dead and
out of the picture, as though He were no longer our Father and we were no
longer His children.

Lent
is the time set aside in the church calendar to come to our senses, to
recognize how we have diminished and degraded ourselves, and begin the journey
back to the Lord. If you need
inspiration to take the journey this year, remember that we have an advantage
over the prodigal son because we already know that our Heavenly Father wants
nothing more than to restore us to His family.
He wants nothing more than to forgive, heal, and bless us; to return us
to our proper dignity as sons and daughters of the Most High. That is why the Father gave His only begotten
Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting
life.

Lent
is not about getting God to change His mind about us; no, it is about us changing
our minds and lives in order to return to Him.
No amount of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving will alter anything about
the Lord; but these tools are useful in helping us see the truth about our sinfulness
and in opening our lives to the mercy that Jesus Christ always extends to
repentant sinners.

No
matter what others say or what our own thoughts may tell us, our Heavenly
Father is not a harsh, unforgiving God out to punish us. We do not deny ourselves and take up our
crosses because He is somehow appeased by our suffering or wants us to become
miserable. Instead, He simply wants us
to do what we must in order to return home and become participants in the great
celebration of the Kingdom of Heaven.
He wants His departed children to leave the pig sty and return to the life
for which He created us. He wants those who are spiritually dead to return to
life.

At
the end of the day, that is the blessed opportunity provided by Great
Lent: to come to our senses and begin
the journey back to a Father Who loves us more than we can possibly
imagine. He runs out to welcome us, but we
must decide to start walking toward Him. Let this sink in: He is not the one who needs to change.

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Fr. Philip has addressed audiences at St. Herman Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, AK, and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, NY. He has also earned lots of frequent flyer miles as an invited participant in international Orthodox consultations on social ethics in Greece, Romania, and Syria.

He often introduces visiting groups of students from local universities to the Orthodox faith. He has also spoken about Eastern Christianity at Methodist, Episcopal, and Church of Christ congregations in Abilene. You may listen to his podcasts on www.ancientfaithradio.org. He has also been interviewed on “Come Receive the Light,” an internationally syndicated radio program of the Orthodox Christian Network (www.myocn.net). Anyone wanting to invite him to speak may send an email to: plemasters@mcm.edu.